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Man, as man, has never realized himself. The greater part of him, his potential being, has always been submerged. What is history if not the endless story of his repeated failures?

Henry Miller

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Henry Miller
Age: 88 †
Born: 1891
Born: December 26
Died: 1980
Died: June 7
Essayist
Novelist
Painter
Writer
New York City
New York
Genri Miller
Henri Miller
Phineas Flapdoodle
Men
Realized
Greater
Story
History
Submerged
Stories
Repeated
Part
Failures
Always
Potential
Never
Endless

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Until he [man] has become fully human, until he learns to conduct himself as a member of the earth, he will continue to create gods who will destroy him. The tragedy of Greece lies not in the destruction of a great culture but in the abortion of a great vision.
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The monstrous thing is not that men have created roses out of this dung heap, but that, for some reason or other, they should want roses.
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The world itself is pregnant with failure, is the perfect manifestation of imperfection, of the consciousness of failure.
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Men are not suffering from the lack of good literature, good art, good theatre, good music, but from that which has made it impossible for these to become manifest. In short, they are suffering from the silent shameful conspiracy (the more shameful since it is unacknowledged) which has bound them together as enemies of art and artists.
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When spring comes to Paris the humblest mortal alive must feel that he dwells in paradise.
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The real enemy can always be met and conquered, or won over. Real antagonism is based on love, a love which has not recognized itself.
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He is trying to recapture his innocence, yet all he succeeds in doing (by writing) is to inoculate the world with a virus of his disillusionment.
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There is something else to be said about this immediate, spontaneous way of working, and that is this: in such moments, one is playing at the game of creation.
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I struggled in the beginning. I said I was going to write the truth, so help me God. And I thought I was. I found I couldn't. Nobody can write the absolute truth.
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But it's just because the chances are all against you, just because there is so little hope, that life is sweet over here.
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Every man, when he gets quiet, when he becomes desperately honest with himself, is capable of uttering profound truths. We all derive from the same source. There is no mystery about the origin of things. We are all part of creation, all kings, all poets, all musicians we have only to open up, only to discover what is already there.
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Greece is the home of the gods they may have died but their presence still makes itself felt. The gods were of human proportion: they were created out of the human spirit.
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The great work must inevitably be obscure, except to the very few, to those who like the author himself are initiated into the mysteries. Communication then is secondary: it is perpetuation which is important. For this only one good reader is necessary.
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Writing, like life itself, is a voyage of discovery. The adventure is a metaphysical one: it is a way of approaching life indirectly, of acquiring a total rather than a partial view of the universe. The writer lives between the upper and lower worlds: he takes the path in order eventually to become the path himself.
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All growth is a leap in the dark.
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Plots and character don't make life. Life is here and now, anytime you say the word, anytime you let her rip.
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In this age, which believes that there is a short cut to everything, the greatest lesson to be learned is that the most difficult way is, in the long run, the easiest.
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Music is a beautiful opiate, if you don't take it too seriously.
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Every day that we fail to live out the maximum of our potentialities we kill the Shakespeare, Dante, Homer, Christ which is in us.
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